The last frontier or a lax parent?

 I remind my daughter the night before about printing out her book report essay, and again the morning of. As is typical of an adolescent who think she knows it all, she brushes me off saying she's got it covered. I drop her off at school and within five minutes get a call from the school office. There she's on the other end of the line, talking to me in pure Telugu (so the school staff can't figure out what she's saying) and asking me if I could please - pretty please - get her book report printout that she "forgot" on the dining table at home and bring it to school before her English period. I roll my eyes (even though she can't see me), and let out a sigh thinking of the traffic and the roundtrip, annoyed by the fact that she forgot it after SO MANY reminders, but find myself telling her I'll do it just this once. 

These are precisely the instances that throw me into an unending loop of questioning myself about my parenting style. I have this strong urge to say "No I will not do it because you need to be responsible for your stuff." But I don't have the heart to do it. She obviously must know I was going to go on a rant and say "I told you so". Yet, she called me because she also knew that when it came down to it, she could count on me.  I tend to believe that I am the last source of support - last frontier, if you will - for the kids. Even if the whole world fails them, I can't. If I won't forgive and forget and bail them out, who will? 

Ranking right up there with such situations is when the  kids ignore your advice (because they are kids) and come to you later and say, "you were right". How I have to hold my tongue! I'd rather they listen to me in the moment than inform me later that I was right. Sigh!

It is one of the enduring debates of being a parent, one that no one warns you about or prepares you for. These situations that your kids put you in make you feel like parenting is a test that you keep taking but won't know the results for a very long time. I'm generally not a nervous test-taker, but this one has the ability to keep me up at night. The biggest fear is that the kids will never own up to their responsibility thinking that I'll always have their backs. But then again - isn't that what being a mom means?

And so, imagining one of my kids one day heading to the airport to catch a flight without their passport and calling me to somehow rush it (do they really think I'm superwoman?), I tell her that I will drop it off but that this is the last time I'm doing it and I'm only doing it because I don't want her to fail the class. She clearly sounds relieved when she thanks me, but I'm sure deep inside she's not looking forward to when I pick her up and deliver my dramatic lecture! 

And the debate (rather, the parenting journey) continues...